


and all the stars like powdered sugar

by Anonymous



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Fae, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Past Abuse, Referenced only, my weird made-up fairy rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:10:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22888189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The iron girl is back again.She’s not made of iron.Of course not.But she’s beautiful and she’s cold, and it’s safe to look at her when she allows herself to be looked at, but if he were to touch her, Murphy thinks, his hands would burn to ash in a second. Just like iron.(A spin-off of the-most-beautiful-broom's most excellent coffee shop AU, featuring Good Neighbor!Murphy and hunter!Emori)
Relationships: Emori/John Murphy (The 100)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Anonymous





	and all the stars like powdered sugar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_most_beautiful_broom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Roach](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22647124) by [the_most_beautiful_broom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom). 



> Not sure if I'm doing the gifting thing correctly, but here goes nothing, right?

The iron girl is back again.

She’s not made of iron.

Of course not.

She really only wears iron on her hands, and even that’s only at the end of a hunt, when she’s tired and frayed around the edges and looking for a place to sit and rest awhile.

But she’s beautiful and she’s cold, and it’s safe to look at her when she allows herself to be looked at, but if he were to touch her, Murphy thinks, his hands would burn to ash in a second.

Just like iron.

“Long day?” he asks, and she blinks, like she’s just now realizing she’s the only one left in the coffee shop.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, I just—yeah. Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

She takes a sip of her coffee, which must be cold by now, and makes a face. “New coworkers. You know how it is.”

“Sure,” Murphy says, as though he’s not the only one who works in the shop.

They’re a long ways from The Green, in the middle of a city built on stone and steel—

_(And iron)_

—but he manages alright.

Most of the time, he manages alright.

The iron girl pretends to work at a law firm.

Or maybe she really does work at a law firm, and her other hobbies are just…extracurriculars.

Murphy doesn’t ask.

But he watches her drag a finger across the rim of her coffee cup, wiping away an imaginary stain, and he wonders whether _new coworkers_ means more hunters.

It’s not a problem.

Not really.

Not for him.

He doesn’t use his gifts long enough to crop up on anyone’s radar, for the most part, and he never tries to pull anyone back to The Green, and so even if they knew about him, he figures he’s low priority enough to not have to worry about salt and iron and holy water all the time.

But Bellamy comes and visits whenever he can, and Raven likes to come and make fun of him for being _such a human_ , and if there are new hunters on the prowl, he’ll have to tell them to stay away for a while.

“It’s late,” the iron girl says. “Sorry, you probably want to close up—”

“It’s okay,” Murphy says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Too quickly.

He answered too quickly.

The iron girl blinks again, slow and calculating.

Then she smiles, and tries to hide it behind the curve of the mug as she takes another sip.

“Okay,” she says. “Cool.”

Murphy wonders if she knows.

He wonders what she would do if he asked her for her name.

Last time Raven came by, she laughed when she saw the ledgers that he keeps beneath the counter, each new name carefully logged and counted and hidden away.

_Safe_.

“You think you can save them all?” she asked, and Murphy shrugged.

“It’s a start,” he said, and left it at that.

There are so many humans in the world.

And Murphy isn’t a fool; he has no plans for a revolution, and he knows the names he saves are still barely a drop in the bucket, compared to the rest of the city.

But he logs the names that people give him when he asks, and that makes them safe, he thinks, just for a little while.

If anyone else tries to take their names, there’ll be nothing there.

The humans will never notice.

“They never do,” Raven says, and laughs again. “Haven’t they ever asked for your name?”

Of course not.

“They call me Murphy.”

When they call him anything.

“Sure, and I call your queen _my lady_. Doesn’t make her something she’s not.”

_She’s not my queen_ , Murphy wants to say. _Not anymore._

_Maybe not ever._

But Raven and Bellamy, they stand in the Summer Court.

Their allegiance was a choice.

It’s not nearly the same.

They don’t understand.

They understand why he left, and they help where they’re able, but the Summer Court has no idea of the thrall the queen holds over her own court.

When she tossed him away, it was the first time in his life that his thoughts were entirely his own.

The new space in his mind had terrified him.

And then there had been Bellamy, and Raven, and Murphy had seen them—actually _seen_ them—for the first time, had been able to think past the empty space in his brain that used to scream _traitor_ and _enemy_ whenever a Good Neighbor drew too close.

Bellamy bears a scar behind one of his ears, at the nape of his neck, and Murphy isn’t sure, but he thinks he may have been the one to leave it.

He knows he’s the one who ruined Raven’s leg.

But they still come and visit him, and the one time he tried to bring it up, Raven waved her hand, so effortlessly dismissive.

“It wasn’t you,” she said, even though he knows it was. “It was a long time ago.”

It is a kindness.

Unexpected, unasked for, but a kindness, nonetheless.

He owes her.

Owes both of them.

_New coworkers_ —

“How’s work going?” Murphy asks, and gives what he’s been told is a stupid-looking smile (thanks, Raven) by way of encouragement. “Got any exciting cases?”

“Oh,” the girl says, and gives her coffee cup another secret smile. “A few.”

It’s a joke.

A shared joke, although he still hopes she doesn’t know she’s sharing.

_If she knows_ —

If she knows, it’s just a matter of time before she comes after him, too.

Murphy wonders who the courts took from her.

It’s possible she’s just one of those lucky few with a mission, he supposes.

But he doesn’t really think so.

A sibling, perhaps, or maybe a parent.

The most driven hunters he’s ever met, they all lost someone to the courts—the Summer Court may be kinder about it, but they still pull humans into The Green—and they’re either looking for a loved one or looking for revenge.

He wishes he could ask.

If she told him, he wonders, would he remember?

There’s a chance—whoever was taken, they may have gone to the Summer Court.

If they wanted to leave.

If they were already halfway gone to begin with.

The Summer Court never takes anyone who doesn’t ask.

They may be there now, with Bellamy and Raven and some of the other greenies that wander into his shop from time to time, curious and hesitant.

But there’s a chance—

He remembers.

If she told him a name, he would remember.

It’s his own special curse.

He remembers them all.

_I had to leave_ , he said, when Bellamy found him frozen half to death on the edges of The Green. _Don’t you get it? I had to leave._

_A few cases._

_Something exciting_.

“Well?” he prompts, when the iron girl still doesn’t elaborate. “Care to share with the class?”

“Nah,” she decides. “Confidentiality, and all that.”

“Fair enough.”

Outside, the snow is falling.

Murphy watches the specks of white that drift past the windows of his shop, feels the cold that seeps up through the stone and curls around him, heavy and familiar.

The iron girl came from a hunt.

This late at night, and looking so tired and far away, with iron bands still on her fingers and a backpack full of things that he can’t touch—

She always comes from a hunt.

It’s easy to rationalize.

If she’s hunting the Winter Court, he’s happy to stay out of her way.

Hell, he’d even help—if she asked, if she _knew_ —

But she might be hunting the Summer Court.

The world is teeming with humans.

They don’t always care to make these distinctions.

The bell over the door chimes, and Murphy looks up in time to see a boy with dark hair and pale, high cheekbones—

The boy freezes when he sees the iron girlHis hair is long enough to cover his ears.

For a second, he stands there, frozen, like he’s unable to look away, unable to move—

“We’re closed,” Murphy says, and nods when the boy looks at him. “Sorry.”

The boy nods, and then he’s gone.

_Safe_.

And it wasn’t a lie, either.

The sign on the door lists their hours as 5 in the morning until 9 at night, and it’s well past that, now.

So it’s not a lie, the shop _is_ closed.

Murphy’s become much better at Not Lying, in the time since the queen cast him out.

It’s a funny sort of line to walk.

The girl watches the reflection of the boy in the mirror as he hurries away through the snow.

The presence of his reflection seems to reassure her, and she eases her hand out of her backpack, casual as anything, like she was just reaching for a pen or something.

Murphy’s very proud of that mirror.

He’d had to ask Raven’s help to glamor it up right, but it works.

It shows everything, the way it should.

Half of the Folk who come in, he thinks, probably visit just to catch a glimpse of that mirror.

High or low, Winter or Summer, they’re all prone to a little bit of vanity.

He’s hardly an exception.

“I thought it was okay,” the iron girl says, and he jumps, looks away from the mirror.

“What’s that?”

“You weren’t going anywhere. Remember?"

“Oh, yeah, well—” Murphy flounders about for a response. “You know, I didn’t want to have to fire all the machines back up again.”

“Ah.”

“It’d just be a real hassle.”

“Of course.”

“You know how it is.”

“Sure,” she says. “Sure.”

She swirls the coffee around the bottom of her mug, watches the dark liquid spiral in on itself as it pulls away from the wall.

Murphy watches the snow some more.

It must be very cold outside.

He’s never liked the cold all that much.

How’s that for irony?

Eventually, he looks away from the window to see the girl staring at where her hands are closed around the mug, and he wonders who she was hunting.

He wonders if he knew them.

The thought is—unsettling.

“So what kind of lawyer are you, anyway?”

He asks the question without any real idea of where he’s trying to make it lead, but when she glances up again, he thinks he’s sort of got an idea.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, you know,” he says, and waves a hand to gesture at nothing. “Are you an _innocent until proven guilty_ type or more of a _look, we all know they’re guilty_ type?”

“Legally speaking,” she says, amused. “All lawyers have to be the former.”

“Sure,” he allows. “But there’s got to be a distinction.”

The hunters he’s spoken to—the hunters he saw _before_ —they were all very much of a mind on this topic.

There was no _innocent until proven guilty_ —more the other way around—and every last greenblood was rotten to the core, completely untrustworthy.

Strictly speaking, that’s not necessarily untrue.

They still had to be dealt with.

“True,” the girl allows, and doesn’t say anything else.

Murphy watches her think it over for a little while, and then wonders what she would do if he nudged her shoulder to prompt an answer.

He wonders whether it would burn him to do so.

“Well?” he says instead, and the iron girl hums a little, still trying to choose the right words.

“Neither,” she says at last.

“How’s that?”

“Do you know how many innocent people there are in this world? Not a lot.”

“But?”

“ _But_ ,” she allows. “That doesn’t mean that the accused are always guilty of the crime of which they’ve been accused.”

It’s entirely possible that she’s really just talking about her day job.

There’s a very real chance that she’s not reading as much into the conversation as he is, that she really is only speaking on a single level.

But humans are very good at this—at speaking on multiple topics, without using different words or having to parse between truth and non-truth.

“So how does that play out in real life?” he asks, and the iron girl hesitates.

“We get—a case,” she says.

“A case,” he echoes.

Her hesitation is a clue, he thinks.

He thinks she might be speaking on multiple levels now.

It’s so difficult to tell, with humans.

Deception comes so easily to them.

_You’re getting more human every day,_ Raven says.

He doesn’t disagree.

“And you have to put in a lot of work,” the girl continues. “To make sure. That they’re really guilty.”

“Sounds exhausting,” Murphy says.

But it’s hard, not to feel relieved.

Of _course_ she’s different.

Of course she’s not like the other hunters.

Of course she would think to look.

“Well, you know,” she says. “It’s not nearly as glamorous as it seems in the movies.”

That lopsided smile is tugging at one corner of her mouth, and Murphy’s quite certain that she’s thinking about her hobbies now, not just talking about her day job.

“And if they’re innocent?” he asks, just to be certain.

“If they’re innocent, then they’re free to go,” she says, and then shakes her head a little. “That’s how the legal system works.”

“How it’s _supposed_ to work,” he says, because he’s been around humans long enough to know that this is a point that they all feel pretty strongly about.

“How it’s supposed to work,” she amends.

“And if they’re guilty?”

“If they’re guilty,” she says, and her gaze darts to the backpack next to her, just for a second. “Then I do my job.”

In theory, she means prosecution.

In actuality, Murphy thinks, _prosecution_ could be a very nice euphemism, with a little work.

“And what does that entail?” he asks.

“Whatever it has to.”

She’s looking at her backpack again.

And her voice is very cold.

_Iron girl,_ Murphy thinks.

Sometimes, he lets himself forget—

“Huh,” he says out loud, and takes her empty coffee cup to clean behind the counter.

The girl quirks an eyebrow at his tone.

“Why?” she asks, and his heart skips a beat, but she’s smiling, waiting to be let in on the joke. “You got something to confess?”

“Me?” he says, and spreads his hands wide. “I’m an open book.”

“ _You?_ ” she echoes, clearly doubtful.

That’s okay.

He didn’t lie.

He didn’t say _yes_ or _no_ , so it’s not a lie.

“Are you saying I’m not?” he asks, feigning offense. “I’m saying I’ve never heard you answer a question with a statement."

Sometimes, he lets himself forget—

He wonders if she knows—

“Is that a question?” Murphy asks, just to be funny.

“Is that your answer?” she shoots back immediately.

He shrugs and puts the cup down. “So ask me a question.”

“I’m not on the clock.”

“Neither am I.”

The iron girl considers him.

For a long moment, she just looks at him, and his fingers itch to reach for the mug again, reach for a towel, do something, do anything other than stand there and be looked at—

“An open book,” she says at last.

“I’m an open book,” he agrees, and feels his tongue burn at the words.

So that was closer to a lie.

_Oops_.

“Really?”

“Really,” he says, and bites his tongue to keep from crying out at the pain.

The iron girl glances at his mouth for half a second, and he wonders if she can see the way he’s tensed up, the way the lie sits on his tongue like salt.

He’s getting better at this, he thinks.

But then she leans forward, hands flat on the counter.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

_Of course._

Of course that’s the question she’d choose.

It’s only fair, Murphy supposes.

He takes so many names, each and every day—tucks them away safe and secure behind the counter—and he knows she’s a human, she’s just about as human as they come—

There is danger, in giving a name away.

This he knows.

There is danger.

But the iron girl is sitting across the counter with a bag full of sharp edges and tools that could kill him where he stands, and she is nothing at all like the queen under the hill—

She is, he thinks, infinitely more dangerous.

When the queen got inside his head, it took him years to be free of her.

If he let the iron girl in, he suspects he might not ever be able to get her out again.

_What’s your name?_

_Can I get your name for the order?_

_Can I have your name?_

_Do you mind?_

_A name?_

_What’s your name?_

“John,” says Murphy. “My name’s John.”

The iron girl sits back again.

Satisfied.

“John,” she echoes.

It’s a boring name.

A human name.

He likes it.

Picked it out himself.

“Afraid so,” he says, and makes a rueful sort of expression, because humans don’t like names that are too ordinary, just like they don’t like names that are too _un_ ordinary.

“Huh,” she says, and then shrugs. “Could be worse.”

“I guess so. Care to trade?”

The question slips out without his meaning it too, and he wants immediately to take it back.

“You’re asking for my name?” the iron girl asks.

Her eyes dart to the mirror behind his head.

_Checking_ , Murphy thinks. Just to be safe.

It’s amazing, what humans will give away, if they’re asked nicely enough.

Precious things like names, and they just give them away.

All that power—

Murphy lets the question go.

“I’m asking what I can call you,” he corrects.

“Is there a difference?”

“You’d be surprised.”

If she asks, he can tell her some of the more unusual names that people have given him—it would be an easy inference, and not really a lie at all, to imply that that was what he meant.

But she just watches him for a second, and she doesn’t look at the mirror this time.

“Emori.”

_Emori_.

Germanic origin—a derivation of another name, an older name—

It means _strength_.

It means _home_.

It means _glory_.

It’s odd, Murphy thinks, how humans pick names that have so many different meanings at once.

“Emori,” he echoes.

It suits her.

Humans’ names always do.

The iron girl whose name is _Emori_ gives him a sharp look, like she’s expecting him to say something clever about her name.

“Nice to meet you, _John_ ,” she says, and puts a slight emphasis on the name that feels a little like a warning.

“Nice to meet you, Emori,” he says, and doesn’t even try to make it sound like anything different than what it is.

She hesitates for so long that he thinks he must have said it wrong before she nods, just once.

Outside, the snow has stopped.

Murphy notices the stillness, and Emori glances in the mirror, notes the change in the weather and the darkness of the night outside.

“It’s late,” she says, even though it was late when she arrived and later still when he started the conversation to begin with. “I’d better get out of your hair.”

She’s standing, sliding easily out of her chair, and Murphy has to bite back the sudden and very human urge to say something as foolish as _don’t_ or _wait_ —

“Well, yeah,” he says, and waves at the bag she slings over one shoulder. “All those exciting cases.”

Emori smiles

“Well,” she says. “Cases, anyhow.”

She pauses just on the door, taps a finger against the sign he’s displayed facing out onto the street.

_If You Can Read This, You’re Welcome_.

“Isn’t this facing the wrong way?”

Murphy had seen the sign in a library, next to a bunch of other silly posters promoting literacy.

In his shop, it serves a slightly different purpose.

“No,” he says. “I think it gets the point across.”

She hums, reads it once, twice—

For the briefest second, she looks at the mirror one more time, and then shrugs.

“See you later,” he says, and she nods.

“Yeah, probably.”

Then she’s gone.

Murphy watches her until he’s sure she’s gone.

Then he takes the ledger out from behind the counter, writes her name in neat, careful letters, and waits for the ink to dry.

_Safe_ , he thinks, as he watches the color change, turn to something darker. _Safe_.

By the time he leaves, it’s snowing again.

Murphy stands looking up at the sky, leans against the lamppost out front until his skin starts to smoke, and then shakes the snow out of his hair and heads off in the general direction of home.

There is no mirror, on the streets outside his shop, and the freshly fallen snow shows no footprints on the ground behind him.


End file.
